


Wooden

by SquigglyAverageJoe



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquigglyAverageJoe/pseuds/SquigglyAverageJoe
Summary: After a recently passed loved one leaves her an old mansion out in the country, surrounded by woods, Alitheia finds herself inexplicably drawn to the location—likely due to the fact that it looks like some sort of setting for a horror movie.





	Wooden

The closest town to my destination is three hours away. That’s strange—I have no idea why Auntie Pearl would think that’s a good idea. Auntie Pearl had always seemed smart, safe, logical, and while my interest in horror and paranormal things had always been obvious and she had always encouraged my interests, she always seemed to shake her head at the cliche’s, the obvious twist right around the bend, always finding the main characters of horror stories almost too dumb to live. “No, don’t go to the basement, dumbass,” she would say, laughing as I munched down on popcorn. “Coraline, don’t be stupid, that door’s locked for a reason!” And my personal favorite—“CAN YOU NOT HEAR THE CHAINSAW OR DO YOU THINK THAT’S YOUR DEAD WIFE YOU’RE SEARCHING FOR?” She hated that TV show, and I eventually begun to hate it, too, but that was just because the acting was bad.

Living three hours away from civilization makes my Auntie seem like a hermit, but she is— _was_ the exact opposite. She always wanted to be around people, always wanted to converse, and make friends. Her wife—I called her Aunt Jen, but she always said I didn’t have to, but how could I not when it obviously made her so happy?—often joked she could fall in love at the drop of a hat, something that I started to think ran in the family, due to the nature of my father, one of my brothers and myself. And it was true, my Auntie Pearl just had so much love in her heart. She was the type who tipped forty percent or more to waitresses when we went out to eat, complimented strangers if they were wearing something they liked out of the blue, offered children candy on the street (so long as the parents were okay with that, she had a purse full of hard candies like a sweet grandmother, but she understood why parents would be skeptical), and use told her friends and family often how much she loved them. So, why three hours away from this town?

It’s charming, I guess, in my perspective as a tourist. There’s a handful of shops, one proudly displaying a rainbow flag in the window, since it’s June. Another sells candy, and I have to fight the urge to go in there, because I’ll tell myself it’s just to look and walk out with half the store’s contents. The streets are nice, everything is neat and people all around seem relatively happy. A woman walking hand in hand with her child, who barely reaches her waist but has pigtails that reach the ground, smile and wave at me, and eye the map in my hand.

I am an obvious tourist.

I looked at the distance between this town and the mansion I’m trying to reach. I still don’t understand why Auntie Pearl had a mansion she never went to—she had been rich, _very_ rich, but she hadn’t been the type to spontaneously buy things she didn’t need, not when she would rather, much gladly, buy her wife flowers every Friday, and take me out to lunch.

She was the type of woman who crammed fifties into homeless people’s hands, not even questioning if they were actually homeless or not, because she didn’t want to be rude, and would spontaneously buy someone else’s groceries at the store, because she wanted to. I say “type” but I’ve never met a woman like her. I think she’s the only person. Aunt Jen was sweet like her, but she wasn’t as unbelievably kind.

I miss them both.

I try to regain my composure as I study the map, but right as I finally get ahold of myself, there’s a man suddenly there. I start—he’s my age, white, in a shirt with sleeves that are rolled up to expose his forearms. “Lost?” He asks and it takes me a minute to realize he’s talking to me.

I’m immediately on guard—My Auntie was very trusting, and she always told me that people were, at their core, always good, but even she was usually wary of men that tried to talk to her. “...No,” I say. “Just stopping here and trying to think about where to go next.” I have been driving for two days straight—it’s beginning to affect me. I yawn.

“Where ya hail from?” He’s got a thick, southern accent I hadn’t noticed before—likely because he just said one word.

“...California.” California does not have small towns like this—well, maybe it does. I’ve never been to them. “It’s that obvious I’m some sort of tourist, huh?”

He grins. “Ain’t the first, miss, ain’t the last. An’ most people are more obvious ‘bout it. Ya mind me askin’ where you’re headin’?”

He takes my long silence as a ‘ _yes, I do mind.’_

“Say no more,” he says. “I don’t wish to disturb ya.” His ‘I’ sounds more like ‘ _Ah.’_ “Just wondered if you needed help. Have a good one.” He walks off, enters a building and disappears. That encounter could have gone so much worse—for exacmple, I could have collapsed from exhaustion and cracked my skull open on the street, leaving this stranger possibly the only witness to my death.

_At least then I wouldn’t miss Auntie Pearl and Aunt Jen so much,_ my depressed mind whispers. I tell it to can it, now’s not the time.

I yawn again—but it’s obvious now there’s no way I can keep going. I need to stop for the night. I need to find a hotel, or motel, or something. I mean, I could also sleep in my car, but since I have _no_ shortage of money anymore, and I know I’ll be more comfortable in a bed, there probably isn’t that much of a point. I look at my map again, at the circled place I’m supposed to go to, but my Auntie Pearl’s map isn’t as useful as it should be—it mostly shows the building and the area surrounding it, and the road to take to get there, but nothing else. It’s not incredibly useful, but I can’t stop looking at it, at my Auntie’s neat scrawl in the corner.

I stuff it back into the pocket on my raincoat and pull out my phone instead. A hotel is nearby, a block down this street. I yawn and hop into my car again, going down the street until I find a sign indicating a hotel.

The sign says _Soft Waters Inn._ Sounds relaxing.

The lobby is well lit, with a modern, overhead structure full of yellow bulbs that looks like six or seven cubes pressed together. It’s warm too, cozy feeling with cream colored curtains over the window and a red rug over the tiled floor. There’s a man behind a desk, with a very pointy nose and dark eyes. His hair is in corn rows, multiple are dyed blue and they look cool. “Hello, miss, what can I help you with today?”

“Um, I was trying to find a place to stay. Can I get a room?”

His smile looks genuinely warm—no one has smiled at me since Auntie Pearl closed her eyes and didn’t open them again. And even that had been the first one for the three weeks since Aunt Jen was found. “Sure—just you?”

The words make me feel terribly alone. “Yes, it’s just me.”

“It’ll be about—“ He cuts himself off—blood is trickling out of his nose and dripping down his chin. “ _Fuck._ Not again.”

A thick, southern drawl shouts, “Hey, sugar, ya doin’ alright?” Someone enters through a door. “Oh, no, again, hon?”

“Yes, again.” He’s cupping the blood in his palms and looking disgusted. The man from earlier already has a box of tissues and one in hand. He dabs at the now pouring blood.

The man behind the counter looks down at his palm like this is the first time he has ever seen blood in his life. “Oh, I’m gonna faint,” he says. I don’t believe he’s actually gonna faint, but he pitches forward, directly into the other man’s arms.

The man sighs and slowly brings him towards a chair in the corner. “Wait a sec’!” He shouts at me.

He props him up and puts the tissue box in his lap. “Hey. Hey, sugar...” He pats his cheek and shoves a bunch of tissues in his hand. “Just...” He adjusts his hand so it’s held up to his nose, his head down. He groans out a mumbled, “thanks, babe,” and the southern guy comes back to the desk.

We stare awkwardly for a minute. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he says. “I swear, every time he’s talking to someone here, his nose starts gushin’.”

“I didn’t think he was actually about to faint,” I tell him. “I didn’t think that was actually a thing.”

“Oh, it’s a thing,” the man who just fainted says from his chair. “A really irritating thing. I could have become a _nurse_ , now I have to be an _engineer,_ minoring in _journalism._ ” He sighs. “I was accepted into nursing school and everything!”

The man behind the desk is grinning. “Jerome made the right call,” he said. “When he realized he wouldn’t actually be a useful nurse, he chose to go to his second career. He isn’t as upset about as he says.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, miss, what can I do ya’ for?”

“I just want a room,” I say. “For one night. I have cash.”

The man nods. “It’s seventy five dollars a night, you’ll need to pay in the morning, but with one night, you’ll have to be ready to leave at two. Does that work for you?”

“It does,” I sigh.

“Great. Here’s a key to your room, 9B, should be on the floor above, on your right.” He presses a key into my hand. “We have a complimentary breakfast we start serving at six, stop serving at ten. Stairs are over there.” He gestured to my right.

“Thank you.” I fix my purse.

The man frowns. “Is...that your only luggage?”

It’s a relatively large purse. “Yeah,” I admit. “I packed a change of clothes, grabbed my wallet and car keys, and I think...one granola bar and left.”

He blinks. “That eager to get to Oregon, huh?”

“I was in a bit of a rush.” I don’t want to share why. 

He nods. “Okay then, miss. Have a good evening and I’ll see ya in the morning, I gotta tend to my husband.”

“Fiancé,” Jerome corrects him.

“Like it matters,” the man says, immediately at his side. “Ya know the minute this month is over, I’m gonna make you my husband.” He kisses his temple and squeezes his hand. “And then we’re gonna do all the weird ass things married couples do, like...” He thinks for a minute. “...Argue about finances?”

“Don’t worry, my lovely,” Jerome says. “I’m this close to earning my degree, and I already have a job lined up. Any financial troubles will be short lived, my darling.”

“I love it when you say anything that indicates how optimistic you are for our future together as a couple!”

I continue up the stairs. My room is actually on the left, but I let myself in with the key.

I change into the extra outfit I have in my bag after a shower and then collapse into the bed—it’s warm. But I can’t fall asleep.

I pull out my phone and look through my text messages—I left my mother on read when texted me, asking why I was attending Auntie Pearl’s funeral, and my father’s last text to me, sent three weeks ago, asking if Auntie Pearl planned to leave him anything.

I look at my Aunt Jen’s last text she sent me. It’s long, said because she was worried it’d be the last thing she said to me, so she wanted to make it good. _Hey, sweetheart. I know you and Pearl’ve been really worried about me, and I know you and her were gonna visit me tomorrow, but I’m gonna be honest with you and her—I really don’t have long. I don’t think I’m gonna make it to tomorrow, and I know you planned to visit tomorrow, because then your daddy wouldn’t notice you were gone, so I understand if you can’t come now. Your auntie already knows, she’s ready to pick you up if you want her to, but I understand. I hate fitting into the stereotype of the significant other who hates their in-laws, but your father’s a dick. I just want you to know I’m glad someone from Pearl’s family liked me. I could never tell if it was because we were gay, or if maybe there was something wrong with me. Take care of Auntie Pearl for me, alright? I love you._

My father would have lost his shit had he known I went to visit Aunt Jen, because he didn’t view her as my aunt, or his sister-in-law. He had stopped viewing Auntie Pearl as his sister when she came out, and then at some point, Auntie Pearl had ran away to be with her girlfriend. I was actually present, when most of it all happened, though I had been young and I hadn’t really understood. The moment I started questioning my sexuality, my grandmother had brought up Auntie Pearl, talking about how much she wished she had raised her better and then telling my mother to make sure she raised me better. None of them really knew, and I was glad. Immediately, though, I had tried to find her—when I reached out to her, telling her I was her niece and my father’s daughter and that I genuinely wanted to know my aunt. We went out to lunch in a place much closer to where I loved, since she said she could afford to travel.

I was closer with her than I was with my own mother. When she asked why I reached out to her, she understood and seemed to genuinely care. And then she just became some sort of surrogate mother for me.

And now she’s gone.

I knew she wasn’t going to last long after Aunt Jen died. They were soulmates, really. But the really cruel thing about it all, I think, is Aunt Jen didn’t die in the hospital.

Everyone had thought she was gonna die. We thought it was the end. But she made a quick turn around. She was a little weak, a little sickly, but good. She ended up going home with Auntie Pearl, both were in tears. I remember, very clearly, Auntie Pearl gave her a necklace (one with a silver pendant, but strung with pearls) and Jen said she’d wear it until the day she died.

Two days later, I came by to visit about an hour before Auntie Pearl would be there—and I found the necklace on the table. She had something else around her neck, and she was strung up from the ceiling, in the kitchen.

They never found out who did it, but my Auntie Pearl drove herself mad, believed she did.

“Fucking Henry!” She would say, running her fingers over each and every pearl, staring at it with glassy eyes. She had had wrinkles before, but ever since the hospital, she had looked a thousand times older. “That, that...”

“Who’s Henry?” I always asked.

She’d take a deep breath and squeeze my hand. “A murderer. A murderer going straight to hell.” She would curse Henry to hell, mumbling swears and cursing so much and I would curse with her, and we’d long for Jen together.

On her deathbed, she continued to curse Henry, whoever he was, but she tried not to. “No point,” she said. “Focusing on demons, when I’m going to see my angel.” She’d sigh, squeeze my hand tighter. “Alitheia, you’re getting everything, you hear? _Everything._ Even everything that Jen left me, all I ask in return, Al, you bury me with that ring my darling Jen gave me on my middle finger.”

Auntie Pearl could have asked me to launch her body into space, out towards the sun for cremation and I would have done that for her. I did everything when making funeral plans.

She had made it painfully clear that my going to her mansion wasn’t her final wish or anything. If I chose to go there, that was my choice but I promised her I would go there, because it was my choice and I chose to do it. I wanted to—I wanted answers, because Auntie Pearl felt so much like family, but I didn’t know her as well as I wanted to. She had so many secrets, so many stories to tell, but always for another time. 

As I drift off into unconsciousness, I swear I feel her hand on top of mine.

I wake up at nine in the morning, sharp. I sit up and rub at my eyes and just sit. I sit and think but I’m not sure i I’m actually thinking, because it doesn’t feel like there’s anything on my mind except the usual. I check my phone—my mom’s once again encouraging me to quit the job I’ve already quit.

I don’t check the room to make sure I have everything, because I have my phone in my hand and put my outfit in my bag the night before when I changed. Once my shoes are on, all of my possessions are on my person and I leave the room, the key in hand.

The lobby is brightly lit and Jerome stands at the desk. “Morning.”

“Morning.” I pull out my wallet.

“Leaving already?” He asks.

“Definitely.” I sigh and run a hand through my hair—my fingers catch on a thousand knots. Add a hairbrush to the list of things I definitely should have brought with me but definitely didn’t. “I don’t suppose you could point me in the way of...this route?” I just show him the map.

He glances at it. “Um...So, if you take a right down this road and then another right, you’ll find an obnoxiously large gas station,” he tells me. “Drive right on past it and then I think it’s a left and there should be signs leading to a freeway that will lead you to wherever it is you’re trying to go?” He doesn’t sound sure. “Sorry, I’m terrible with directions.”

“It’s cool. Um...” I pull a hundred out of my wallet. “Keep the change—you and your husband own this inn, right?”

He grins. “Fiancé, technically, but yes! Well, it’s more of a family business that he owns, but he tells me I’m his co-owner. His entire family heard we were getting married and just welcomed me into the business. We’re saving up for our wedding now, so I very much appreciate the money! Twenty five dollars is enough for like, four glasses of average wine at our reception.” I blink. “...It’s gonna be a small wedding.” I hand him the key which he accepts. “You have a good one, miss.”

The morning is cool on my skin—I have three hours to drive before I finally arrive at the mansion I never knew existed. I hadn’t even known my Auntie Pearl had owned it until she brought it up in conversation, all casual like. _“Oh, those photos? Of the burning mansion? Yeah, it’s my mansion. We had to rebuild it after the fire, but only like, the west wing. It’s still good, still standing. Sturdy.”_

I get in my car. Auntie Pearl’s bedroom walls had been covered head to toe with photos. Wallpapered with them. Photographs of whatever she liked—there was a photo of an eclipse, one of a really fat bunny, and a worn one of Aunt Jen looking like a model. Auntie Pearl had loved that one, with Aunt Jen being in her early twenties, in a cherry red one piece that showed off the majority of her torso, all auburn curls and sun kissed skin with a floppy brimmed hat, grinning, the setting sun behind her. It was a good photo. Auntie Pearl loved taking pictures. She had always wanted to be a photographer.

When I first got my job at a nightclub, I had been ashamed, hoping no one would recognize me. The first week had been hell, fumbling on the pole, my stomach churning, so anxious. When I had reached out to Auntie Pearl, she had asked if I had a job, but she hadn’t judged me for my answer.

I still technically work there, but I don’t intend to for much longer. It was a good source of income, but I can’t stand the income, or the anxiety I get every time I think I see someone who vaguely resembles anyone I’ve ever met in my life.

I can’t stop thinking as my car moves down the road.

I miss my auntie. I haven’t seen home in days. I miss my co-workers. All the girls were so sweet, even Prim who wasn’t actually sweet, who had insulted me and my outfits and said I was bad at making margaritas, but had then taught me how to make a proper margarita and gave me lessons on pole dancing and recognized all my improvement I made. God, I miss Prim. Every time a guy acted too creepy and did something I didn’t like, she would appear, thin and tall and lanky with eyes you saw in your nightmares and they would run away and she’d let me go on my break, even if I had just had my break, just gave me a moment to calm down. I even miss my manager—a large black man with a French accent. He hadn’t been the most amazing manager, but if you said a man was creeping you out, he would throw him out on his ass into the street. Once, an old man stuck his hand up my shirt while I was waiting on him, and he had grabbed him by the collar, forced him to apologize, told him he wasn’t welcome and kicked him out, all while staying remarkably calm.

I miss my parents—I still kind of hate them, but was it so wrong to want a hug from my mother? Auntie Pearl had become a surrogate mother and hadn’t minded, but now that she’s gone, it very much feels like I have no one.

My phone vibrates—I ignore it because I’m not going to be on the news. _Alitheia Uyen, a nineteen year old stripper, was found dead in her car after looking at her phone while driving. Authorities assume she thought she had received a text, but had really received a notification that her screen time was up fourteen percent. She is likely to have died on impact. Services will be held for her never because she’s dead to her parents, more at eight._

A car horn sounds behind me—I don’t know why, I haven’t slowed down or anything. The asshole behind me speeds up, pulls into other lane then goes in front of me. I roll my eyes.

All of a sudden, the driver slams on the brakes bring the car to a stop. I slam on my own, startled. He is laughing like crazy—he just did that to be a dick and what a dick!

I feel so incredibly lonely, but also, incredibly pissed.

The road stretches on endlessly.


End file.
